Store owners and other merchandisers commonly display products on upright pegboard merchandising systems. In these merchandising systems, an upright pegboard provides a vertically oriented support surface, upon which product support brackets are mounted. Typically, the pegboard support has a front surface forming a background for the product display, and a matrix of uniformly spaced holes are formed through the pegboard support in order that product support brackets may be mounted and supported thereon. The pegboard panel is normally selected to be one of standardized thickness and the holes in the matrix are arranged in horizontal rows and vertical columns so that four adjacent holes are located at the corners of an imaginary square.
Product support brackets are constructed for use with such a pegboard support and are generally in the form of a product support arm which is attached to a mounting base that usually has a pair of horizontal mounting progs which extend rearwardly in the mounting base to engage a pair of mounting holes adjacent one another on a selected row of the pegboard holes. Some support brackets, however, may contain less or more rearwardly projecting prongs or may mount on a single vertical column of mounting holes. In any event, the mounting base is securely retained on the front surface of the pegboard support by virtue of the prongs extended through the selected mounting holes. The product support brackets are primarily standardized lengths, and the merchant hangs products for display onto the various product support arms from an array of product support brackets so that the products may be sequentially removed from the respective product support arm, for example, by customers. In this manner, a variety of products or items can be displayed with high density and in a pleasing and organized manner.
It is often the case that the user of these pegboard merchandising systems desires to present information in conjunction with the product display. Usually, this information comprises the price of the product, but other information, such as inventory control information, descriptive material, product name and the like, is often appropriate for presentation in conjunction with the product display. The value of displaying information in conjunction with a product has been recognized in the past. To this end, unitary product support and information display brackets have been constructed for use with pegboard systems. Examples of these unitary systems are described in the following list of patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 3,345,547 Felkay 12 Apr. 1966 3,645,485 Gold 29 Feb. 1972 4,246,710 Mixer 27 Jan. 1981 4,286,764 Pfeifer 1 Sep. 1981 4,303,217 Garfinkle 1 Dec. 1981 4,351,440 Thalenfeld 28 Sep. 1982 4,405,051 Thalenfeld 20 Sep. 1983 4,474,351 Thalenfeld 2 Oct. 1984 4,520,978 Taub 4 June 1985 4,540,093 Merl et al 10 Sep. 1985 4,674,721 Thalenfeld 23 June 1987 4,750,698 Barnes 14 June 1988 ______________________________________
______________________________________ Foreign Patent Patent No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 2,726,158 Freitag 14 Dec. 1978 ______________________________________
While the above referenced patents are suitable to display both products and information correlated to the products, the complete replacement of product support brackets which do not have unitary information displays is costly, and it may be appreciated that an information display that is adapted to retro-fit onto existing "product only" display brackets can be desirable. Indeed, there has, in the past, been some development of information displays which retro-fit onto product only display brackets. A prime example of such a retro-fit display is shown in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,997 issued May 7, 1991. In this patent, an auxiliary information display bracket is described which is adapted to retrofit onto existing product display brackets so that information may be presented proximate to the display of that item. Another retro-fit display bracket is shown in my U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,215 issued Jan. 21, 1992. In the '215 patent, I describe a display bracket with a living hinge structure that mounts between the mounting base of a product support bracket and a pegboard support. Other examples of retro-fit price display elements are shown in the following list of patents:
______________________________________ U.S. Pat. No. Inventor Issue Date ______________________________________ 4,463,510 Windish 7 Aug. 1984 4,525,944 Fast 2 July 1985 4,531,313 Fast 30 July 1985 4,583,308 Taub 22 Apr. 1986 4,646,454 Fast 3 March 1987 4,665,639 Fast 19 May 1987 4,693,024 Fast 15 Sep. 1987 4,698,929 Fast 13 Oct. 1987 4,703,570 Fast 3 Nov. 1987 4,715,135 Fast 29 Dec. 1987 4,773,172 Fast 27 Sept. 1988 4,882,868 Fast 28 Nov. 1989 4,976,058 Fast 11 Dec. 1990 ______________________________________
In almost all of the retro-fit apparatus described in the above list of patents, a flexible strip is used as a mounting portion that is mounted between the front surface of the pegboard support and the mounting base of the product support bracket. The flexible strip then extends alongside and in contact with the product support arm and terminates, at a distal end, in a downturned display portion upon which information can be placed. A disadvantage of these various flexible strip assemblies, though, is that the flexible strip can often become dislodged so that it falls off of the product display arm to droop alongside the upright pegboard support. Not only does this dislodgment make the information display substantially useless, but also dislodgment causes the pegboard display system to appear messy and unattractive and can even interfere with the removal of product from the product support brackets. This disadvantage was, to a large degree, rectified by the structures described in my own U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,012,997 and 5,082,215 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,976,058 to Valiulis.
Other patents have taught the use of hanger guards operative to shield the free end of a product support bracket. U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,084 issued Oct. 14, 1975 to Valiulis teaches a retro-fit hanger guard that mounts onto the base of a product support bracket between the base and the upright support panel. U.S. Pat. No. 4,394,909 issued Jul. 26, 1983 to Valiulis describes a telescoping hanger guard which mounts directly to the pegboard support in the matrix of mounting holes directly above the base member of a product support bracket. This guard flexes to allow removal of products, and the '909 patent discloses that information may be displayed on a free-end portion of the guard.
Despite the advantages and benefits of all of the above described prior art structures, there remained a need for improved display bracket structures which could work in conjunction with product display brackets in order to present information correlated to the product on the support bracket. Indeed, improved display bracket structures that had an increased ability to be retro-fitted onto merchandising pegboard systems without requiring removal of any product from any of the support brackets on the system were highly desirable from a time and cost saving standpoint. It is further desirable to have auxiliary information display brackets which can more easily be mounted in conjunction with existing product support brackets in order to display a product information. The present invention is directed, then to these further needs.